(Left to right) Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) is out on the town with his fianc� Michele (Abbie Cornish) and close friend Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) in �Stop-Loss.�Photo Credit: Frank Masi

Photo: Frank Masi, Www.paramountpresskits.com Frank

(Left to right) Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) is out on the town...

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Left to right) Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) is out on the town with his fianc頍ichele (Abbie Cornish) and close friend Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) in Stop-Loss. Paramount 2007 Ran on: 03-23-2008
Director Kimberly Peirce's &quo;Stop-Loss&quo; looks at Iraq War veterans forced to extend their tours.

The military's "stop-loss" policy allows the U.S. government to keep calling back soldiers for multiple tours of duty in Iraq. The human consequences of this policy are explored in "Stop-Loss," the latest from Kimberly Peirce, who is best known for directing (and co-writing) "Boys Don't Cry."

Obviously, with a title like "Stop-Loss," it's no surprise that this is a movie about a soldier who gets stop-lossed. But a lot happens between the opening credits and the soldier's order to report back to duty. In that long interval, the film establishes its attention to atmosphere and its respect for the Army, its culture and the kinds of communities from which soldiers spring. Clearly, Peirce's motives are pure. She's not using the "stop-loss" issue as a wedge to make the government or the administration look bad. She's using it to dramatize an injustice and to advocate on behalf of the soldiers.

And so she begins where she should begin, in Iraq, on a seemingly routine day at a checkpoint. Then something happens, and, in the blink of an eye, these young men find themselves in a narrow alley, with machine gun fire and rockets raining down on them from the rooftops. It's harrowing, men are killed and another soldier is blinded and crippled. We realize that every day this could happen, and that on some days it does happen, so it's understandable that every soldier in Iraq ends up counting the days until his duty is done and he gets to go home, alive and in one piece.

As in "Boys Don't Cry," Peirce, who wrote the screenplay for "Stop-Loss," has a feel for small-town life, for the things rowdy young people say and for how they act when drunk. Prior to their discharge, the men go back to their Texas town and enjoy a weekend pass. They hook up with friends, relatives and girlfriends they haven't seen in months and drink and carry on all night.

In these scenes, Peirce does a number of important things - and she does them all at the same time. She establishes the nature of the town, acknowledging both the expansiveness of its spirit and the narrowness of its worldview. She also gives us a feel for what these fellows are like when they relax. These are young, testosterone-driven fellows who like to get drunk and shoot guns. This is what they were like before they joined the Army. It might be why they joined the Army in the first place.

And yet - Peirce does this subtly but unmistakably - she lets us know that the behavior we're seeing is beyond the usual Texas partying, that the things these fellows are doing on their first night back indicate young men in the grip of post-traumatic stress disorder. They can't stop. They're jumpy. Their moods are on a hair trigger. Under the best of circumstances, it's going to be a long road back. These guys have already paid their dues. And once we see that - not just know it, but feel it - Peirce has set up her story. She has taken us to the point that it's just unthinkable that these men should ever have to go through this again.

In a way, that's the real beginning of the film. Before that is the prologue. Ryan Phillippe, as the young sergeant who gets stop-lossed, embodies a special sort of young man who is very much Army material - aggressive, enthusiastic and patriotic. Yet he's too smart not to know when he's being had, and too conscience-driven not to regret some of the things the Army has made him do. His superior intelligence and perception put him into conflict, for the first time, with his best friend (Channing Tatum), whose emotional structure makes him incapable of questioning authority. It's a nice performance from Tatum, as a guy who thinks he's trying to understand but who unconsciously knows he can't afford to.

Finally, there may be a star-making performance in "Stop-Loss," that of Abbie Cornish, as our hero's childhood friend. As Michelle, she's blond, pretty and tough as hell. She drives a big old American car. She can down four Tequila shots in a row. She can unload an automatic pistol in two seconds, put the clip in her back pocket and make sure there's nothing in the breach. She is the iconic essence of young Texas womanhood, and, of course, she's Australian. This kid has a future.